A Tentative Inquiry into the Office of Seventy, 1835-1845
Provo, UT
Grandin Book Company
2010
"Cook's essay examines the rise and fall and rise again of the seventy 1835-1845. He argues that Joseph Smith's introduction of the office unintentionally created (or at least contributed to) a crisis within the power structure of the church. But importantly his provocative discussion of the seventy is a vehicle for examining authority and priesthood (1830-1845) in a larger context. For the first time in Mormon scholarship, Cook satisfactorily elucidates the early notion of "high priesthood" -- what it was and what it was not; who had it and who did not, and what its relationship was to priesthood office and to the order of Melchizedek itself? He explains why the high priests were the darlings of Mormon authority and why the twelve and the seventy were a threat to them and to the president's high council. He claims that the offices of apostle and seventy had to do with itinerant ministry and, at first, were not offices of the order of Melchizedek. The only way the twelve and the seventy could have presiding authority was to be made high priests. The powerful high priests who occupied the president's high council pressured Smith, in April 1837, to strip the seventy of their presiding authority." [Publisher's abstract]